One month ago, I gathered ten dynasty experts from around the fantasy football industry to perform an exercise. Only, they didn’t know it was an exercise. Rather, they considered it a standard mock draft where an article would be written immediately following the draft. I wanted them to view the draft this way so that their picks would accurately display where the industry stood at that moment in time. We are now just four weeks removed from the time of that draft and the landscape of fantasy football has changed so drastically that some of these picks, while seemingly steals at the time, are now the most unimaginable reaches. Remember, it has just been a month. The purpose of this exercise was to highlight the difference between re-draft leagues and dynasty leagues.
In redraft leagues, a large chunk of the equation is a player’s situation. If a marginal player is bound to see 140 targets or will be the primary running back behind a great offensive line, or will be Aaron Rodgers‘ #2 wide receiver then their value is substantially higher in a redraft league than a dynasty league. You’ll see several examples below of where the presumed great situations fell apart and would have left owners disappointed. The name of the game in dynasty leagues is reliability and talent. This one-month period is just a glimpse at how dynasty value fluctuates, but there are some clear examples that demonstrate this idea below.
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League Settings
- 1 QB
- 2 RB
- 3 WR
- 1 TE
- 2 FLX
- 7 Bench
- 0.5 PPR
- No Kickers
- No DST
The Brainiac Participants (give these guys a follow!)
- Mike Tagliere (FantasyPros)
- Pete Davidson (RotoBahn)
- Jody Smith (FantasyPros)
- Curtis Patrick (Pro Football Focus)
- Jim Sannes (numberFire)
- Kyle Borgognoni (Fantasy Footballers)
- Eliot Crist (Pro Football Focus)
- Derek Brown (Fantasy Football 24/7)
- Anthony Amico (RotoViz)
See the full rosters here (top 10 value picks in green, top 5 reaches in red)
The Draft
There isn’t too much to see here, as the first two rounds are typically all safe players. The exception, of course, is Tyreek Hill, who finished as the #5 fantasy wide receiver in football last season. He was never built to be the top option in an offense, however, and the Chiefs recognized that so they filled the gap with Sammy Watkins. At this point, Tyreek would likely be selected in the 5th or 6th round in this league. He is without Alex Smith, the best deep ball passer in the league (really), his exceptional offensive coordinator is off to Chicago, and now he may lose 40 touches next season.
There were two picks here that would have any fantasy owners feeling sick to their stomach had this been a real draft. Jarvis Landry and Derrick Henry both seemed like tremendous picks at the time. In fact, I would have pulled the trigger myself on Henry had Gronk not fallen to me, even knowing the point I wanted to make in this article. He was all set up to be the bell-cow back in an exciting young offense after assuming that role late in the season and shredding playoff teams. Now that Dion Lewis signed for starter-type money, it seems clear that Henry’s future stock is even worse than this time last season. Likewise, Landy was sitting in the best possible situation in Miami. The offense was built around him and he was seeing far more targets than a player of his talent deserves. Then he was dealt to one of the worst possible situations in all of football where he will be forced to split Tyrod Taylor‘s passes with Josh Gordon, Corey Coleman, David Njoku, Duke Johnson and Carlos Hyde. Yikes.
These rounds were not as much about busts in value, but instead, two absolute steals. There is nothing even remotely sexy about drafting Mark Ingram or Golden Tate is a dynasty league. We’ve seen their ceilings. It is plenty useful, but not too exciting. Meanwhile, everyone is climbing over each other to get the Landrys and Henrys of the world while these steady assets fell far too far. Alvin Kamara is phenomenal for sure, but Ingram isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He was the RB #6 last season in fantasy and has now been top 15 at the position each of the past four years. Golden Tate is much of the same, with 90+ receptions in four straight seasons and over 4,000 yards during that time. He is a virtual lock to outperform the expected value of his draft pick over the next handful of seasons.
Jordy Nelson is the closest thing to proving my point here, and it would have been a much easier case to make had it been a mock draft from the general public. Fortunately, the experts in this draft all saw the writing on the wall for Nelson and assumed he would be released and sign in a much worse situation (because every non-Rodgers team is a much worse situation). Derek actually got a decent value on Nelson, but I’ll bet he would have been taken in the 4th or 5th round had this not been an expert mock. I also want to take this opportunity to point out that Tags stealing Hunter Henry from the top of my queue was entirely uncalled for. I was so dumbfounded that I passed on Rashaad Penny for Andrew Luck. Double whammy. Thanks, Tags.
Weeks after winning an FSWA award, Jim Sannes was pulling magic tricks in our mock draft. Perhaps he has a time machine, maybe he ran out of time and auto-picked Dion Lewis and Jerick McKinnon. I don’t know, but whatever the case, he somehow landed the two best value picks in the draft. Both of these free agent running backs have immense talent and it was recognized by running back needy teams with situations built to succeed. If the draft were held today, it is likely that both would go at least four rounds higher than they were selected here.
At the time, Josh Doctson looked like an excellent value as well. I was planning on grabbing him with pick 88 and even contemplated taking Doctson over D’onta Foreman at pick 73, but Kyle Borgognoni took my guy for the 26th time in the draft. Right after this, the Redskins spent a fortune to bring in Paul Richardson and are apparently targeting more wide receiver help, which just goes to show that his days as a target hog were limited to just months of speculation.
When Cameron Meredith was selected, everyone in the room hated Derek Brown. Just a month ago, he was the cat’s pajamas in a draft full of experts because he was the Chicago Bears’ default number one receiver. Sure, he isn’t the most talented player in the world and he is coming off a major surgery, but targets are targets after all, even if they are coming from Mitch Trubisky. Only, the Bears knew Meredith was just another Kamar Aiken who performed adequately in the spotlight but needed to be replaced. You know the rest of the story: Chicago signed Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel and Trey Burton then placed an original tender on Meredith, essentially admitting that he is worthless to them and to fantasy owners.
Look at Tags grabbing Royce Freeman (and Courtland Sutton two rounds prior) before they flew up everyone else’s list. He is killing it in the NFL Draft Prep this year. Anyways, that is beside the point. There were two ridiculous dynasty values in these group of picks. Eliot Crist took Trey Burton while Curtis Patrick nabbed Rex Burkhead in the middle of the 14th. At the time, I was shocked by Eliot’s pick thinking Burton had no business being selected, but boy, oh boy, has his stock skyrocketed. We knew he was oozing with talent, but had we figured an NFL team with a hole at the position would recognize that and sign him for big bucks, Burton surely would have been off the board several rounds earlier. The same is true for Rex Burkhead, who looked like a breakout fantasy asset prior to his injury late in the year. Belichick, of course, saw what we all did and let Dion Lewis walk, opening up the door for Rex to be a top 20 running back this season if he can stay healthy.
This doesn’t exactly fit with the theme of the article, but nothing can ever be as tidy as you’d hope for. The moral of these two rounds is clearly a lesson I need to take heed of: WAIT ON QUARTERBACKS. You know, I hate when people write in all caps, but this demands an exception to that rule. Tom Brady fell to the 16th round. Drew Brees went undrafted. I know it is a dynasty league, but these two guys are still rolling, and when you can replace them in a few years with a talent like Patrick Mahomes in the last round, it makes all the sense in the world to just wait and grab yourself a top 5 QB. On top of that Kirk Cousins just joined forces with the ever-efficient Vikings offense and their top receiver core in the league. Wait on quarterbacks. Wait on quarterbacks. Wait on quarterbacks.
You can see the full rosters here. Immediately after the draft, I highlighted the top 10 value picks in green and the top 5 reaches in red. You can see just how well that aged (Hint: not well).
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